There has been a lot of discussion in this forum about how to do AYP deep meditation correctly, and we know that simple is better. Simply favor the mantra instead of any thoughts, impressions or stimuli that you become aware of, or if you lose the mantra, and don’t add any concepts or try to control the mantra in any way.
Now, there is another element that I have found, and the question is if it can be considered an aspect of “favoring” or an undesirable “addition”: When I favor the mantra, rather than just repeating it, I feel drawn to also approach the mantra more, to be closer to it, or to be more intimate with it. (This is just a sense, no analysis or thinking involved).
When I favor the mantra by “being more with it”, the stillness gets deeper and more profound and has a sense of holiness or purity to it, and the mantra often gets fainter, than if I would just be repeating it.
Any input on this is most welcome.
I got a possible answer just after I posted the above.
A: If you get drawn to get closer to the mantra naturally, it’s correct, but if you decide willingly to approach the mantra more it’s not correct. (?)
Q: However, in both cases I get the same effect of more profound stillness.
A: But the end doesn’t justify the means. (?)
Weaver wrote:
Yes. This is how I experience the favoring of the mantra too. Repeating it is a mind thing, being with it is what makes the mantra “fuzzy”. Then the mantra is in resonance with the stillness.
May all your Nows be Here
We posted at the same time, Weaver
quote:
A: If you get drawn to get closer to the mantra naturally, it’s correct, but if you decide willingly to approach the mantra more it’s not correct. (?)
You can decide willingly to let the mantra approach you. This way you are in allowence, not activity.
May all your Nows be Here
weaver/Katrine
I’ve been discovering something similar in a different context.
Being a predominantly visual person (as I think a lot of people are)I would also see the written word of the mantra in my mind as I repeated it.
When listening to music I would often go into an old habit of imagining myself on the stage playing the guitar or whatever, and would get a great kick out of this as I would feel the emotion and the adulation from the crowds. 
The point about this is that I was listening to and hearing the music from the outside in.
The habit I am developing now is to listen to the music and feel the music in me, be the music and know that I am also the musician that is palying or singing. I find this an incredible difference.
After a recent music encounter like this I turned off the radio and began some meditation, feeling the sound of the mantra in me and leaving out the visualisation
To me the effect of this seems to fit the same description you give weaver.
I’m not suggesting you were also seing the word of the mantra, but maybe some other hyper-visual person out there is doing just that.
Louis
If drawing closer to the mantra happens, it’s ok. Trying to draw closer to the mantra (or trying to do anything else), though, is not.
Lots of stuff happens. Let it happen, like a barber cutting your hair. Opt out of the process!
Strongly disagree (sorry!). Don’t decide or allow anything. Just let it all happen. No intervention.
[sorry your posting is marked as edited by me. it’s not. Just a software misstep]
Louis - I’m a hyper-visual person as well, and I ‘see’ just about everything, including the mantra. I don’t do this intentionally - I can’t even prevent it from happening, and so ‘seeing’ is as inevitable to me as breathing or blinking. In some way seeing the mantra helps me to be with it more naturally. There is a significant presence in the deep silence; some kind of energy that is profoundly still and on the verge of being seen.
I had my first experience this week of hearing the mantra repeating itself. My mind had wandered off on some winding path, and when it came back, I was surprised to see and hear that the mantra had carried on without me! 
Thanks for your post, Weaver. “Being more with the mantra” is how you have expressed it; my way of expressing would be “releasing the mantra” or “allowing the mantra to repeat itself”. It IS kind of like a pleasant date, Melissa. 
Could somebody tell me, how important is it to be able to visualize in order to progress in the spiritual field? Are all of you really good a visualizing? I am so bad at it 
, its not even funny… it has taken me almost a year to visualize my spinal nerve… and I still don’t see it right… I can follow my breath up my back, through my head to the center of my forehead and back down… but never through a silver thread… So all of you who are progressing so fast in this area… are you all good visualizers and am I at a disadvantage for not being able to visualize?
Hi Shanti,
You are not at all alone in being poor at visualizing, I think most are. I have also done spinal breathing for about a year, and I can not visualize the spinal thread hardly at all, but I can trace the general path from the root to the third eye by feeling fairly well, much better than in the beginning, and I think that works for the practice. The inner seeing will come alive by itself when ecstatic conductivity opens in the nervous system, and spinal breathing is the main practice for working toward this. It will happen when enough purification has been done.
I agree with what the others have said - the ability to visualize is just one of many tools, and not necessarily the right one for the job. I can clearly visualize my spinal nerve, the silver thread, and just about anything else that’s suggested as a metaphor, but am still in the ozone when it comes to the ecstatic experience associated with spinal breathing . . . it’s just not happening yet. Don’t lose heart - it happens differently for everyone, and in the way that’s right for you.
Jim wrote:
Yes; I see your point. I should not “look out for anything”. That is still activity. At first I said to myself (my mind talking, ya know 
) I still think I could use the wording “decide willingly” if the rest of the sentence ends with “to let it all happen”. This is, after all, both a decision and an allowence. But then…it dawned on me that it takes someone to decide; to allow: The mind. And the point is to transcend the mind, not endorse it. So - I agree, Jim. Thanks
May all your Nows be Here
Shanti wrote:
I feel my spinal nerve, it is one strong ecstatic column almost all the time. And wherever I place my attention on it; it responds with sensations. But I don’t see any silver thread at all - at most I perceive it as…a greyish mass. But this is VERY close to not seing anything at all. So take heart, Shanti. Don’t TRY to visualize anything. As Jim said: “Let it all happen”. For me, ecstacy preceeded inner vision. And I feel fine about it.
May all your Nows be Here
Sparkle wrote:
I see the word. For as long as I can remember, all letters, words, sentences have colors. The days of the week, f.ex., each have their own color (this does not change).
It used to bother me that I kept seeing the mantra…it kept it on the surface. What helped me was following Yoganis suggestion here:
http://www.aypsite.org/115.html
I went from I AM to AYAM. The color of the mantra immediately changed, and the focus went from vision to sound. I can dive with the sound - it is whole.
May all your Nows be Here
Thanks for the comments Meg and Katrine.
Katrine wrote:
But then…it dawned on me that it takes someone to decide; to allow: The mind. And the point is to transcend the mind, not endorse it. So - I agree, Jim. Thanks
On reading down the posts what comes to mind is “the witness” or “the observer”.
Where is the witness in all of this?
In order to know that we are in bliss or deep silence we must be observing or witnessing this, otherwise we would not remember it, but clearly this is not the case.
In initially deciding to use the mantra it is a doing action. After a while it seems to have a life of its own within me. If I favour the vibrational sound of the mantra in me and do not favour the visual of the word, it is still “favouring” one way or the other. Once it is set up at the beginning of the meditation it continues with its own momentum and “I” am “observing” it all happening.
So it appears to me that some action of doing is necessary at the start of the meditation or during the meditation when we drift off, and then once we go deeper the meditation can take on its own life and we simply observe.
The actions of “favouring” or “allowing” seem softer and gentler than say “deciding” or “willing” and would seem to me to be good transitionary actions that allow us to slide gently into the deep.
Thats my take on it for now.
Louis
[quote]
So it appears to me that some action of doing is necessary at the start of the meditation or during the meditation when we drift off
[/quote]Sparkle,
Exactly. Deep meditation itself in AYP is a decisive action that we do willingly, at least as long as the mantra isn’t active by itself. What Jim disagreed on was adding other features to the procedure like “decide willingly to let the mantra approach you”.
This sums up my experience with all of the practices. There is the initial, and sometimes prolonged, stage where it feels awkward, impossible, hopeless. The clunky stage, as Yogani calls it. But with perseverance, it becomes less awkward and more settled. And then one day, ker-plunk! It simply falls into place, because you’ve finally let go and let it happen.
I strongly agree with Jim that we should not intervene - just let it all happen - but in the beginning that’s a tall order. Like Krishnamurti instructing us to just ‘enlighten up’; I’m way too complicated for that.
Hi Weaver,
To respond to your first post, some days the mantra is more on the surface for me and I am very ware of the process of coming back to it. On these days the mantra seems to come more quickly and I repeat it more often throughout the meditation.
Other days I feel like I go into the mantra and float with it and that it takes me on this elongated blissful/ ecstatic trip. I then repeat it again and it spreads out slowly and it goes on like this for the duration of the meditation. It is very pleasant and it does feel very intimate and I end up going through the mantra much more slowly and fewer times over the course of the meditation.
Of course I prefer the latter situation, but I can’t force it one way or another, I simply just accept the mantra for whatever it is on the given day of practice.
Hi Anthem,
Thanks for your reply. Yes, this is similar to how I experience my meditations.
Hi shanti,
I think lot of ppl here are on the same boat as not being able to visualize the spinal nerve. It might take few years to be able to do that not just one year.
The ability to see a light at the 3rd eye is also a related thing and can take some time. Also I feel these two come after adding additional practices like mulabandha, sambhavi, yoni mudra kumbhaka etc…
Right now the goal in spinal breathing for me is restriction of air more than visualizing. First I make sure I am breathing and holding air correctly and then next step I make sure I visualize.
-Near
Genes are a result of karma RATHER THAN A CAUSE OF IT - Yogani